With a 90-80 win against Oakland on Saturday, Michigan has completed the competitive section of their nonconference schedule with the exception of their annual inexplicable nonconference opponent stashed in the heart of the Big Ten schedule. This year's: @ Arkansas on January 21st. Why does Michigan do it? I have no idea. It's a persistent mystery.

Anyway, we won't learn much of anything about the team we don't already know as they take on Arkansas Pine Bluff, Alabama A&M, and Bradley. The former two are ranked 300+ by Kenpom; Bradley is 209 and has a loss to Wofford on their resume. We have 95% of the data we'll have by the time Penn State rolls into down on the 29th. So what have we learned?

The Big Ten is insane. Michigan checks in at #39 in the Kenpom ratings, which is good enough for a projected conference record of… 8-10. Glurp. That's because there are five teams in the league currently ranked in the top 15: #1 Wisconsin, #3 OSU, #12 Michigan State, #13 Indiana, and #14 Purdue. Michigan is currently leading a second tier from 39 to 52 with Illinois, Minnesota, and Northwestern. Nebraska's by itself in the 70s; Penn State and Iowa are horrible.

The Big Ten has a monster lead on the #2 Big Twelve for the title of best tempo-free conference in the country. It is a brutal league. Without a hugely disappointing tourney, it will be a runaway winner in the KenPom rankings for the second straight year.

Michigan is not in the top tier because of their defense. Their offense is 21st nationally (about which more later); their defense is 80th. The league has four defenses allowing less than 90 points per 100 possessions*; Wisconsin and OSU are 1-2 nationally at 81 and 83.5. Michigan's giving up 95, which is good for ninth. They beat out only Northwestern, Iowa, and Penn State.

That's a disappointing backslide for a team that you'd expect to be better on D. Darius Morris was the only loss and Michigan went from one of the youngest teams in the country to middle of the pack, but Michigan was 34th last year. Small sample size caveats apply; IIRC last year at this time Michigan's defense was just as shaky and they pulled it together in the Big Ten.

*[adjusted for schedule strength]

They are #1 in the country at something. Go ahead, guess. You'll never get it. No, none of those things: Michigan is #1 nationally in making two pointers. I should have told you to sit down. I cannot be held responsible for people falling over at this news.

Now that you've recovered, it makes some sense, doesn't it? I mean, Jordan Morgan missed a bunny against Oakland and Greg Kelser joked about how that will cripple his 77% shooting, and you were like "whoah." There is one guy on the team with enough minutes to register in the stats who's shooting under 55% percent, that Jon Horford at a horrendous awful terrible 53%. Michigan's four highest-volume two point shooters are at 76% (Morgan), 58% (Smotrycz), 56% (Hardaway) and 55% (Burke).

This is partially an effect of the schedule. The defenses they've gone up against have not generally been high quality. It was somewhat ugly against Virginia, possessor of the one elite defense they've faced so far. Michigan went 12 of 28 from two and only stayed in the game with blistering three point shooting—they actually shot better from 3 in that game than 2, 46%-42%.

That's an abnormally good defense, sure, but half of Michigan's Big Ten games are going to be against Virginia-quality Ds. This is a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust conference. That second half against Duke, when they tore up ALL OF THE PLUMLEES, is encouraging. They're #1 for some reason, it's not all schedule.

The rest of their offensive stats are basically in line with expectations. They shoot a ton of threes (20th), are only decent at making them (86th), rarely turn the ball over, rarely grab offensive rebounds, and rarely get to the line. POT, now and forever.

That's not a revelation. That's just how Beilein plays the game. We should be looking at these items in relation to last year. The four factors:

TURNOVERS. Poor relative to last year. There is no easy finger to point: everyone's TO rates are up. Burke does have an alarmingly high 22.6; raise your hand if "freshman PG's most obvious flaw is an excessive quantity of turnovers" surprises you. Right, that's Josh Pastner and no one else.

OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING. Less putrescent than usual! Last year they were the Maryland-Baltimore County of offensive rebounding. This year they're Marist. This gives you no context at all. They're up three percent, good for a significant leap.

FREE THROW RATE. Also less putrescent than usual; they've gone from the Towson of free throw rate to… well, not good but also not terrible.

Smotrycz needs to stay on the floor. Smotrycz has improved massively in just about any category you care to name save one: fouls per 40 minutes. He's at 5.9 this year and was at 6.4 before staying out of foul trouble against Oakland. Minutes that do not go to Smotrycz go to Stu Douglass and Matt Vogrich, statistically inferior players in almost literally all possible ways. And those stats don't even account for the defensive problems Michigan has when Smotrycz is on the bench. Michigan will get significantly better if Smotrycz can get his minutes percentage from the 50s into the 70-75 range.

The same assertion goes for Morgan but at least he has a positional analogue on the roster. Michigan's backup 4 is 6'4" Zack Novak.

Defensive issues. The main one: too many quality three-point looks from opponents. They have not been burned by it yet but Oakland missed an array of wincingly wide-open three pointers, as did Virginia. Duke… did not miss, nor did they shoot a lot of quality threes. But the overall point is this: Michigan is facing almost as many threes as they jack themselves. If they're still near 300th in threes faced at the end of the season opponents will have made it rain and Michigan will be staring at a disappointing tourney seed.

The other stuff is the usual: they're mediocre at defending twos, rarely get turnovers, and foul too much. They're kind of short, kind of young, and not that athletic, so none of these things are surprises, but, like, Wisconsin. Michigan can be better defensively—they were better last year—and getting that leap from mediocre to quality will be the difference between a season spent idling near the bubble and waiting for Stauskas/GRIII/McGary and a decent shot at a Sweet 16.

Novak usage. Zack Novak's shooting 64% from two, 44% from three, and has a TO rate under ten. His offensive rating is off the charts… and his usage is in the "limited roles" range. While you can't really run an offense through him, if Michigan could focus a little more on getting him shots it seems like he would reward that effort. That pump-and-step-in jumper he's developed is money.

--------------------------------------

Some Oakland-specific things? Sure.

Trey Burke! That is all.

Trey Burke! No it's not. How crazy would it be if he was backing Morris and eating up half of the minutes currently being forked over to Douglass and Vogrich? Ah, hell. That crossover-in-a-phone-booth that led to a wide open Hardaway three was fantastic, as were many other things. He just needs to get an increment better here (TO rate) and there (three point shooting) to be a bonafide collegiate superstar.

NBA: you hate 5'11" point guards. Leave him to us for now.

Laval Lucas-Perry. The festival of charges and other ill-advised decisions combined with defensive lapses to paint a picture of why LLP and Beilein had a falling out that led to his transfer. I was going to point out that he would still be welcome on a team with zero bench but I looked him up and he's shooting 26% from three and 48% from two. Michigan's getting that out of Douglas.

He does get to the line a lot, FWIW.

Tim Hardaway, come out and play. In the second half it seems like Michigan tries to run its offense through Hardaway for three or four possessions in a row, which is because he has two shots and two points in the first 20 minutes. He refuses to force the issue, which is why his turnover rate remains abnormally low for a guy with high usage. I'd still like to see Michigan force Hardaway into the game earlier; once he starts shooting regularly other opportunities open up.

Brundidge: there is no Brundidge. They have already burned Brundidge's redshirt unless they're going to Devin Gardner him an injury, so insert usual concern about Eso Akunne getting the backup point minutes, such as they are. Akunne looks about as comfortable at the point as I would and the offense gets extraordinarily ponderous when he's in the game.

He hasn't missed a shot yet, though. Let's give him time at the two. I'm not sure if I'm serious here. Vogrich is one for a billion from three, so Akunne may actually provide more value at the moment.

One of the main points of optimism around these parts when it comes to the basketball team is its youth. Young players are usually not so efficient, usually not so safe with the ball, and teams featuring swaths of them usually don't play very well unless they're about to get some Final Fours vacated up in here.

Earlier this year I made the case that when people point to the ill-fated '09 team as a reason to rein your excitement in they weren't necessarily wrong, but they weren't necessarily right, either. Citing a Big Ten Geeks study that showed going from freshman to sophomore results in more improvement than going from a sophomore to senior, I pointed out how absurdly young Michigan was in not only minutes but in usage:

In 2009 freshmen played 31% of Michigan's minutes. This year it's 44%.

What's more, the second and third highest usage guys on the team are freshmen who play at least 60% of minutes. In 2009 Douglass and Novak had low usage and Laval Lucas-Perry was a mid-year transfer who only played 33.% of Michigan's minutes. The percentage of possessions used by freshman this year is vastly higher. Two years ago: 26%. Now: 45%.

Now that the season's over we've got a bit of an issue, though: Tim Hardaway did not have an average freshman year, nor did Jordan Morgan. We can expect Generic Freshman to improve a lot, but what about Incredible Freshman? The threat of regression to the mean looms.

The guys at Big Ten Geeks were kind enough to provide the raw data that they used for that study and I've set about whittling it down. My first thought was that I would chart freshman and sophomore ORtgs and throw together a polynomial trendline that would probably show guys who start off with a bang like Hardaway and Morgan improve a lot less than guys like Adreian Payne, the hyped MSU freshman who struggled to an 89.5 ORtg—horrible—in about nine minutes a game this year, because of regression and getting better quickly etc etc. That didn't come off because the data is a giant hairball.

Next idea: let's whittle down the data set to freshmen with profiles similar to Michigan's freshman trio and see what happened as sophomores. The Geeks study looks at minutes, ORtg, shot%, eFG%, and TO% from players who entered BCS conferences from 2000 to 2005. Only conference games are considered, which is fine for the Geeks' refinement of a vast lump of data but maybe not so good when we're looking at individual players on which we don't have a ton of info. I'm using the entire freshman seasons for Hardaway, Morgan, and Smotrycz; I'll point out conference numbers for each.

Tim Hardaway, Jr.

Min%

ORtg

Shot%

eFG

TO%

76.2

108.8

26.3

52.0

11.1

Hardaway's in-conference ORtg was a hair under 112. Full season numbers are a good chunk more pessimistic.

Freshmen with usage and efficiency as high as Hardaway are extremely rare. Of the almost 700 players in the Geeks study only 14 finished their freshman years with a shot percentage over 25, an ORtg greater than 106, and played half their team's minutes. The names on the list are tantalizing even once you get past the group of total superstars who outperformed Hardaway's freshman year. Those superstars:

JJ Redick (Duke): 115 ORtg

Tyler Hansbrough (UNC): 120

Chris Lofton (Tennessee): 128

Anthony Roberson (Florida): 115

Craig Smith (BC): 113 with 29 shot%

Chris Taft (Pitt): 112 with 28 shot%

These guys* are in Hardaway's range:

Darius Rice(Miami): 110

Rick Rickert(Minnesota): 112

Caron Butler(UConn): 110

Kevin Pittsnogle(Yes That Pittsnogle): 107

Mike Sweetney (Georgetown): 108

Dominic James (Marquette): 107

Aaron Bruce (Baylor): 107

I probably don't have to tell you about Butler, Sweetney, or Pittsnogle. Darius Rice actually sat out his freshman year as a non-qualifier; he was Miami's star player for the entirety of his career. Rickert was kind of a headcase, entered the NBA draft after his sophomore year, got punched by Kevin Garnett, and became an Australasian National Basketball League All Star. James had an explosive freshman year but turned into Bracey Wright afterwards and eventually didn't get drafted.

Bruce is from Australia (seriously) and his career, like his toilet, went in reverse: he was awesome as a freshman but his minutes, points, an efficiency steadily declined over the course of his career, or at least would have if he didn't shoot 33% on twos as a sophomore despite being a 40% three point shooter. What happened? Well, Baylor almost got the death penalty because their coach covered up a murder. Baylor's nonconference schedule was cancelled. So… yeah. That's kind of an outlier. Let's drop him.

What happened to the guys in the range as sophomores? Here's a table. I bolded improvements.

Team

Player

Min Delta

ORtg Delta

Shot% Delta

eFG Delta

TO Delta

Mia

Rice

1.2

-3.3

1.5

-2.5

-0.4

Minn

Rickert

11.3

-8.4

4.9

-8.4

-6.9

UConn

Butler

14.4

3.4

4.0

5.9

-0.3

GTown

Sweetney

14.0

6.1

-2.1

-0.5

0.3

Marq

James

6.4

-8.1

-0.9

-11.7

-2.2

WVU

Pittsnogle

-10.5

-1.1

4.5

0.0

-0.3

AVERAGE

7.1

-1.6

2.1

-2.9

-1.9

On the whole they shot more but less effectively, turned it over slightly less, and played slightly more. Individually, James collapsed and Rickert turned into Dion Harris (apparently except punchable). Rice ended up treading water.

Pittsnogle was a heroic, heroic shooter to keep up his 53.6(!) eFG rate while launching almost a third(!) of WVU shots when he was on the floor but didn't even start. Someone should ask Beilein how he could have played a guy who shot 50% from 2 and 43% from 3 less than 20 minutes a game in 2005-06. Butler and Sweetney took major steps forward, especially Butler. Butler was off to the lottery; Sweetney stuck around, then got drafted in the top ten.

The Upshot

Tim Hardaway's freshman season was ridiculous, and as a bouncy 6'5" wing forward his closet comparable on the list is Caron Butler. Unfortunately, Michigan can't expect him to do what Butler did—that leap in production is Morris-like and obviously an outlier—and his cohort ran in place as sophomores, losing efficiency but taking more of the load. His late-season improvement suggests he's already better than his full year numbers indicate, though, and while he can't add many minutes he can maintain his shooting over the course of the season and become more of an assist guy as he develops a drive to the bucket.

*[Ed: The dataset included Carl Landry, a JUCO transfer, and former UGA guard Ezra Williams. I dropped Landry for obvious reasons and after looking Williams up on the internet I think there's an error somewhere. ESPN shows no games for him; Statsheet shows a 42% FG shooter who shot 30% from 3 and had 2 assists per game, so his shiny ORtg seems improbable. The dataset also shows Williams dropping ORtg at the same time Statsheet says he went from a 30% three point shooter to 40% while nearly doubling his attempts. Not sure if that's a data error or just an amazingly strong effect from dropping nonconference games; either way I think his individual case is not representative. He was a good, not great, college player FWIW.]

Jordan Morgan

Min%

ORtg

Shot%

eFG

TO%

59.6

109.0

20

62.7

19.2

Morgan's in-conference ORtg dips to just under 107. While I think the full-season number for Hardaway is more realistic, here I think the conference number might be better. We'll use the same methodology as Hardaway, though.

Morgan doesn't narrow down the dataset quite as extensively but he's not far off. His parameters: >50% minutes, ORtg between 106 and 112, Shot% between 18 and 22. Results: a list of 13 players featuring Dee Brown, Devin Harris, Rajon Rondo, Courtney Sims, Josh Shipp, Ryan Gomes, and some guy named Williams who played for UNC I'm pretty sure is named Jawad but can't be certain. The average player on the list was awesome in college. Morgan crushed all of them in eFG% save Colorado C, McDonald's All-American, and eventual first round pick David Harrison. This is a tribute to Beilein, Morgan, and especially Darius Morris.

We've got some more names here so let's narrow it down to forward/center types. We'll add in an average for all 13 players as well. Those guys:

Team

Player

Min Delta

ORtg Delta

Shot% Delta

eFG Delta

TO Delta

Colorado

David Harrison

2.7

-7.9

0.4

-16.9

-4.7

LSU

Brandon Bass

-6.8

7.4

4.5

5.8

-2.6

Prov

Ryan Gomes

0

2.0

5.7

-2.1

1.4

Mich

Courtney Sims

-0.5

-11.2

1.4

0.3

8

AVERAGE

just the posts

-1.2

-2.4

3.0

-3.2

0.5

ALL

all 13

4.0

-1.2

3.0

-2.3

-1.3

You know all about Sims and his infuriating career. As a sophomore his TO% shot from a bad 17.5 to an impossible 25.5; he only played half the available minutes each year. He'd end up randomly dominating four games every year, then disappearing for long stretches.

Harrison's massive eFG% regression was all but inevitable after he put up a 66.1 as a freshman. He bounced back to near-freshman numbers the next year and ended up a late first round pick. Bass blew up, left for the draft, and went at the top of the second round. Gomes got better, then just kept getting better. After going 0 for 3 from three in his first two years at Providence he was a 38% three-point shooter as a senior. He was drafted at the tail end of the second round but stuck in the NBA; he's now a Clipper. He's averaged about 12 points a game the last few years.

The Upshot

These are all very good college players (and Courtney Sims), but I think we all know a significant chunk of Morgan's production would not exist if he wasn't running the pick and roll with Darius Morris. His cohort ran in place and the posts actually took a small step back. Harrison's eFG% change is a bit ominous, since he's the only player on the list with a number anywhere near Morgan's insane 63%.

Evan Smotrycz

I thought Smotrycz's relatively pedestrian numbers would bring a flood of candidates but when you look for guys with between 35 and 55 percent of minutes, an ORtg between 96 and 102, and a shot percentage between 21 and 25 you only get eight players.

There are ten that popped up but I chucked out a couple of JUCO transfers for obvious reasons. One, former FSU guard Monte Cummings, was in the army, served a tour of duty in Bosnia, and then hit FSU at 24. He's now in the Finnish league but got in some trouble for weed. He has a more interesting life than you do.

Anway, this is a less notable group of names but the good news is they collectively blew up as sophomores:

Team

Player

Min Delta

ORtg Delta

Shot% Delta

eFG Delta

TO Delta

Bama

Alonzo Gee

18.6

-7.7

1.9

-15.5

-5.1

Stanford

Lawrence Hill

40.5

22.6

5.0

12.3

-1.3

Stanford

Josh Childress

32.8

9.7

1.9

0.6

-2.5

Oregon

Luke Jackson

17.8

22.0

3.6

6.8

-6.1

Nova

Allan Ray

14

17.5

8

10.7

-3.6

Rutgers

JR Inman

34.3

-6.4

4.1

-9.6

-2.0

Kansas

Julian Wright

23.0

6.3

1.2

-5.0

-4.6

BC

Sean Marshall

1.4

6.3

3.5

5.2

-1.2

AVERAGE

22.8

8.8

3.7

0.7

-3.3

(Only Ray and Gee were above 100 as freshmen here, so the numbers are biased towards the lower end of the range—even if you take Smotrycz's conference numbers this is a pretty fair comparison.)

So that's a bunch of guys who got insanely better, Gee, and one guy (Inman) who took to Facebook to accuse his former head coach of "cook[ing] a steak of turmoil" for ruining his senior year, seemingly because he can't play basketball.

The Upshot

It's probably not realistic to expect Smotrycz to see all of the vast improvement his cohort did because I'm betting all of the players above played on teams that lost players in the offseason. If Darius Morris does what it seems the world expects him to that won't be the case at Michigan and Smotrycz isn't suddenly going to be logging 85% of Michigan's minutes. However, there's no reason he can't be significantly more efficient even if he's coming off the bench.

Collective Upshot

Caron Butler, Jordan Morgan, and Josh Childress

The freshmen == improvement meme gets a little sketchy once you get into the rarefied air Morgan and Hardaway reside in. Both of their cohorts essentially didn't improve at all. They didn't get worse—increased usage is naturally paired with decreased ORtg—but each leap into the stratosphere was coupled with one guy treading water and one guy regressing badly.

Michigan fans who watched the two guys play all year know who is who in that situation. Morgan is probably going to tread water. His offense is dependent on other players, his eFG% already massive, and his athleticism is just okay. He's likely to regress to the mean in his shooting and while he'll cut down on the turnovers* and up other bits of his game all that adds up to pretty much the same guy. His improvement will have to come on the defensive end (read: STOP FOULING).

Hardaway, on the other hand, exists in even more rarefied air if you look at the tougher conference schedule. His three point shooting streak extends over the second, tougher half of an entire frickin' year and he's got the physical ability to dominate his position, unlike Morgan. Also his dad is Tim Hardaway.

As for Smotrycz, everyone's giving him an owlish look and hoping he spends the offseason sleeping in the gym so he can be the guy he was supposed to be after he blew up on the AAU circuit two summers ago. His cohort saw three people turn into All-American-type players, three people get a lot better and two guys regress. Split the difference and Michigan should be able to expect efficiency out of him similar to what they got out of Hardaway this year, albeit at considerably reduced usage. Josh Childress is a bit much, but of Michigan's three freshmen he's the most likely to look like a different player next year.

*[Of course Courtney Sims is the lone significant exception to this rule. Argh.]

Oh, I'm an idiot.WCBN's fundraising drive lasts until March 20th, which is… um… four days ago. I said I'd give them a plug. This is it. Their online donation form is still up, though, so this isn't completely useless.

Pads! OH MY GOD IT'S SPRING PRACTICE VIDEO

Excellent savvy on the part of the athletic department to defuse any panic about Michigan wearing white pants this fall. Someone in the department has learned about the internet.

The Wolverine Blog has some spring practice content up, with five guys with the most to lose and most to gain. Maize and Blue Nation has had "whispers come across his desk" that may be random unreliable internet stuff but include reassuring comments like "Craig Roh three point stance" and "Thomas Gordon seeming competent at safety."

Think about that bit: Thomas Gordon seems like the most likely of what will be three or four moved linebackers to be a competent free safety due to his size, speed, and high school position. He was a strongside linebacker last year. Cam Gordon is a strapping guy headed for 230 pounds everyone thought would play linebacker even when he was a receiver. He started at free safety. This year we might (will probably?) see those guys switch positions.

/shakes fist at sky

The second-dumbest thing. Apparently I'm not done with people who say stupid things about Jalen Rose, but what am I supposed to do when Jason Whitlock writes this?

And if it’s clear Rose and Jimmy King were speaking in past tense, there would’ve been no need for Rose to send Hill and Jay Williams tweets before the documentary aired explaining that’s how the Fab Five felt 20 years ago.

Or it was clear but since it was not explicit Rose made it so before the damn thing ever came out, for all the good that did. Whitlock then goes on with his usual condescending What Ails Black Folk crusade because that's what he does. Here's Dave Zirin at the Nation—high up on the list of websites I never thought I'd have cause to link to on MGoBlog—annihilating Whitlock*.

I love that Jack Sharp looks like he could be Purdue's head coach. I don't love that a guy closely associated with the University is essentially Glenn Beck.

*[This is not an endorsement of the Nation's opinion on anything other than Jason Whitlock. I still remember that back in the day the most ludicrously communist Daily columnist during my time as an undergrad got a coveted internship there that he used to write more ludicrously communist pieces. It is a silly place.]

Burlon — out of the lineup for both games this past weekend at Joe Louis Arena — has been plagued by an “inflamed esophagus,” according to Michigan coach Red Berenson.

The junior defenseman has been in and out of the hospital since last Monday when he came down with strep throat. He’s had trouble eating solid food and has lost about 15 pounds over the past week.

Also in that article: Shawn Hunwick is having a mid-life crisis because he never wants to leave Michigan. His first action is taking a fifth year. Suggestion: master's degree. It worked for me.

Gotta collect 'em all. Ray Vinopal's transfer destination is Pitt, which is indeed closer to home—it's about an hour—and also features a bunch of Michigan's former coaches, including his position coach. Because this is a Michigan safety we're talking about he will become an All-American now that he's free from the clutches of Angry Michigan Safety-Hating God.

Even more hockey recruiting. The United States of Hockeychecked out a recent NTDP game and reports back on goalie John Gibson, amongst others:

John Gibson: The big goaltender looks like a pro goalie when he plays. He takes up so much net whether he’s standing up or on his knees. During the shootout, when he came out to challenge, I think the net basically disappeared. When I say the moves Gaudreau and Girgensons put on Gibson were nasty, I mean… just filthy. The big guy made 35 saves, including several key stops late.

I asked one of the team staffers if Gibson was excited about his season and his commitment to Michigan. The reply, “Gibby doesn’t get excited about much of anything.”

So Gibson is the exact opposite of Shawn Hunwick. Warning: don't read the bits on Rocco Grimaldi. They will make you sad he is headed for North Dakota.

Kenpom is the bible. Pete Thamel's NYT article on how accepted Kenpom is amongst college basketball coaches makes me wonder what it will take for halftime statistics to feature offensive rebounding percentage. The brilliant/frustrating thing about tempo-free numbers is that they're stupidly easy to explain (with the admittedly vast exception of "offensive rating"): we took this number, and then we divided it by something. This allows coaches to say things like this:

“I’m not a math geek,” said the George Mason assistant coach Chris Caputo, who does all of the team’s scouting reports. “But it gives me a quick statistical synopsis of who they are before we watch tape and personnel. What do they do well? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Where do their points come from? It’s a snapshot of relevant statistics.”

No football or baseball coach that confesses he looks at advanced metrics would start off his statement "I'm not a math geek," or at least they'd obviously be lying. With Kenpom it's plausible Caputo just knows how to divide.

The frustrating part about all this is how stubborn the broadcasting establishment is about incorporating this stuff. I'm tired of seeing "FG%" next to "three pointers" and trying to figure out on the fly what each team's percentage on twos is.

Programming note. Since the basketball team has definitively disproven the idea that a liveblog around these parts is some kind of curse—the curse obviously exists, mind you, but goes wider than just this here blog—we're going to do one for the Iowa game today. Why? I don't really know.

Deford and the Dream of Horses. Frank Deford sits down to briefly address this Ed O'Bannon thing before dozing off and dreaming of horses…

…and the headline goes for the gusto: "lawsuit threatens NCAA amateurism." That seems akin to those headlines about a 16-team Big Ten with outposts in Nagasaki and Atlantis, but Deford does a pretty good job of justifying it, all things considered:

So here's the nub for the NCAA: Explain the exemption that absolves the organization from compensating players for their labor.

So far, the NCAA, whose office is in Indianapolis, has spent a great deal of pretrial energy trying desperately to get the case shifted from San Francisco to its home court in Indiana. However, its effort did not pay off, as Federal Judge Claudia Wilken denied the request. Now, the discovery phase begins.

The outlook is bleak. The 2009 decision to award retired NFL players compensation for the use of their likeness in video games must surely hang over the NCAA's head. If old pros should be paid for the appropriation of their personages, why shouldn't old collegians?

I'm coming up empty even when I approach the problem from the perspective of a slick-haired guy in a suit attempting to argue an obviously untenable position because that's how daddy gets a luxury car. I'm all for the collegiate spirit, but I'm also all for the vague semblance of fairness.

Remember how I used to rail about the ridiculous increase in head coaches' salaries? Good times. Also outdated times:

The trend of rapidly accelerating pay for major-college head football coaches is being replicated — and then some — for their top assistants.

With many contracts being negotiated or finalized, nearly a dozen schools in the NCAA's 120-school Football Bowl Subdivision have made deals under which they will be spending at least 38% more on their offensive or defensive coordinator in 2010 than they did in 2009.

This, like everything else in college football, is Lane Kiffin's fault.

Even so, every time a coordinator breaks a million dollars it's another blow to the idea that big time college sports programs can't afford to provide something to their players. If a BCS university's athletic department isn't profitable, it's because the university doesn't want it to be profitable. Period. You could hire a high school coach and fly coach and laugh as your terrible team gets a million billion dollars in TV revenue. You could drop the crew teams. You could become Donald Sterling, and laugh all the way to the bank. There is an unbelievable amount of money that could go to the players.

I can understand the point of view that you'd rather give someone else a scholarship and have another team or draw less from the general fund than offer something resembling fair compensation to football and basketball players, but that's not where the extra money goes, does it?

Conference du Gump. The Big Ten, as always, is slowwwww. John Gasaway gets a brief window to promulgate tempo-free whatnot in the Wall Street Journal and supplies a chart (chart):

The Tempo Index

Here are the fastest and slowest major-conference teams, based on their number of possessions per 40 minutes of conference play.

THE TORTOISES

THE HARES

1

Wisconsin (57.6)

1

Providence (72.8)

2

Michigan (59.7)

2

Arkansas (72.3)

3

Iowa (61)

3

Texas Tech (72)

4

Penn State (61.3)

4

Villanova (71.6)

5

Northwestern (61.8)

5

Washington (71.4)

6

Pittsburgh (62)

6

Texas (71.4)

7

USC (62.1)

7

Kansas State (71.3)

Holy cold potatoes: Big Ten teams comprise the bottom five and Michigan is second only to Wisconsin.

Gasaway, by the way, confirmed for me that my previous instinct about Michigan's conference defense vis a vis its offense was correct. Tempo-free aerials are usually centered on 1.00 point per trip, and Michigan both averaged and provided just about one point per trip during conference play. Average at everything? Not so much. This was a twitter message, in case you're wondering about the terseness:

That latter won't surprise anyone given the Taj Mahal Michigan shooters have assembled over the past few months. The former, though, is one of the enduring mysteries of the Big Ten season. It may be one of the enduring mysteries of John Beilein's career: Michigan is currently 47th in the adjusted efficiency ratings at Kenpom. Barring John Lickliter going 12/12 from three in a couple hours, this will be the best defense Beilein has ever had according to Kenpom.

How in the hell is a team with basically one player over 6'5" (Sims and Gibson hardly ever play together) actually good at defense? Kenpom says it's a lot of forced turnovers and a Wisconsin-like aversion to giving up free throws making up for bleah eFG% defense and rebounding. That turnovers without fouling thing is a neat trick.

The thing is: that fingerprint is characteristic of the 1-3-1 zone Beilein is known for… and Michigan had to abandon midway through the nonconference schedule because mediocrities like Boston College and Alabama were treating it like a layup line. By the Big Ten portion of the schedule, Michigan had morphed into an almost exclusively man-to-man team.

This isn't like football where a terrible offense can sometimes make that team's defense look better than it is as opponents get their three point lead and play keep-away. The opponent's offense, or lack thereof, is of no relevance once you suck tempo out of the equation. So this appears to be a real positive that could last into next year. If anyone on the team can throw a ball into Lake Michigan, it could be relevant.

A source within the Big Ten told the Tribune last month that given what transpired in 2003, when Notre Dame all but accepted an invitation to join the Big Ten before pulling back, "the only way they will be offered is if they first accept. The Big Ten went down that road and got burned. Fool me once, fool me twice."

Fat chance of that. Nothing to see here, move along, etc. At least ND Nation's reaction has been the usual wildly entertaining mix of garment-rending, arrogance and delusion.

On the flipside of that, Rutgers fans were almost nonchalant (which, certainly owed much to how frequently the topic has been debated to death on our side in recent years) and completely self-assured about it. ”Of course Rutgers was the most desirable option. How could anyone possibly think otherwise?”

Er… well, you see… it's just… nah. Never mind.

I said another piece on this in a Sporting Blog article yesterday and remain skeptical that Rutgers moves the needle enough in New York for the local cable companies to shell out for the BTN, but on WTKA today Ira made a good point: with a zillion Big Ten alums in the city, their combined might could be Captain Planet to Pollutin' Time Warner. Rutgers gets to be the fey South American kid whose special power is "heart".

Etc.: Jim Mandich has cancer, but it is apparently treatable. TOC puts together Big Ten efficiency graphs that show two things: holy God is the offense bad against teams not named Minnesota, and holy crap are they inconsistent.

Talkin'. I'd actually scheduled this podcast appearance at The Solid Verbal last week and the kids over there just happened to hit the news cycle jackpot. So, yeah, there's a podcast of me talking to Ty and Dan about the shoe that just dropped, Tate Forcier, the future of the program, and Admiral Ackbar.

One clarification: I was just talking extemporaneously about a question I hadn't thought about before when I mentioned that I thought Rich Rodriguez probably had an idea of what was going on with the quality control assistants. After some more research, I think that's erroneous since one of the charges is a "failure to monitor" on Rodriguez's part. "Failure to monitor" appears to be something that precludes Rodriguez knowing about the violations.

Obligatory item in which I offer an opinion about virtually everyone acting stupid. First, Brandon Graham:

Former Wolverine Brandon Graham said he didn't experience any of the alleged violations during his time at Michigan and that the NCAA report shouldn't sour anyone's view on Rodriguez.

"Coach Rod’s a good coach, and people are just trying to get him in trouble to me," Graham said.

The obvious contrast is with Morgan Trent, who sold out the program in a statement. One: now we have a pretty good explanation for why Trent is a successful NFL player but basically sucked at Michigan. He did not like the program change and didn't put in full effort. Two: while people going "lol Trent you suck" are not covering themselves in glory, you can dump Trent in with those guys in a barrel of people I don't want to get a beer with.

Trent is symptomatic of the problems resulting from the vast culture change Rodriguez brought with him, and each former Carr guy who just can't get over the change who goes out the door or transfers before their time is one more scholarship not being wasted. Trent doesn't know anything about the exact specifics of what GAs and QC assistants are allowed to do and didn't know that stretching time was CARA. He's just talking out of his ass because he dislikes RR, and I hereby excommunicate him.

Michigan will be hit with some penalties, and "major violations" are possible. But these allegations don't seem to be overly extreme, despite some harsh language in the report. Michigan could be hit with probation or scholarship losses, and it will need to be more careful on these issues going forward. I'll repeat what I've said all along: Rich Rodriguez's fate ultimately comes down to whether or not he wins games, not what the NCAA decides in August.

In the end, I'd guess a quality-control staffer probably will lose his job, and changes surely are in store for the compliance department. Beyond that, maybe not much more than institutional embarrassment, which is no small price to pay at Michigan.

But the real change better start with Rodriguez, who has to know the new athletic director, while offering his support privately and publicly, also is reserving final judgment.

The difference between the two papers is kind of amazing, isn't it?

Recent interviewee Compliance Guy also has a post at his home base. It's measured:

Many of Michigan’s violations involve slippery territory. Hire enough noncoaching staff members, give them enough coaching-like responsibilities, and leave them with student-athletes and these violations are bound to happen. It might sound incredulous that the coaches didn’t consider stretching and warm-up to be CARA, but other preventive measures like training room activities are not included. …

Michigan is likely not facing the same level of sanctions as USC. In addition to the absence of a lack of institutional control allegation, Michigan’s excess CARA was not the “two to three times” or “nine hour days” that the players originally alleged.

I would expect a hodgepodge of significant but not devastating penalties including reduced CARA limits (either through a shorter season or reduced hourly limits), reductions in coaching staff members, recruiting restrictions, and reductions in financial aid. That Michigan is a repeat violator might only mean a longer probation of three to four years rather than the minimum of two.

"Reductions in financial aid" means scholarship losses, but more on that in a bit.

Section With Nothing To Do With You-Know-What

So I've got all these tabs that have just… lingered since about Monday night when minor amounts of hell broke loose. Here they are.

"This feels to me like just such an appropriate next step. It's leadership, but a different kind of leadership," said Brandon, 57, discussing the impending move during an interview at Domino's headquarters, a few miles from the university's main campus. "This has provided me with an opportunity to connect with a place that has been incredibly important to my life."

We might not win much, but by God we go to Kenpom. The amount of pride I find in this statement from the man formerly known as Big Ten Wonk is completely irrational:

Seems to me that this type of progressive thought would suit a fan base like Duke’s — intelligent fans with a successful program — really well. Are you aware of any fan bases that are particularly attuned to it?

Well, it’s more anecdotal, and it’s drawing a distinction between bloggers and actual fans who I hear from. But obviously, I hear a lot from Duke and North Carolina, both because those are great combinations of A. successful programs and B. smart fan bases. I definitely hear a lot from that region of North Carolina. I think the key might be smart and impassioned fan bases, even more than successful programs, because I would also point to a community like Michigan, which has had next to nothing in the way of recent success. I hear a lot from Michigan fans — however improbably, they definitely are hip to this stuff.

Excellent work, Michigan internets. Say anything you want about us, but by God we know when to divide.

Justin Turner doom mitigation. AnnArbor.com article on Justin Turner got lost in the shuffle. In it are some reasons Turner didn't play last year that mitgate your (read: my) panic that he might not live up to his massive recruiting reputation, which would be a disaster:

“He wasn’t here in the summer lifting and going to class and doing all those things, so it’s really a few months,” Gibson said.

Once Turner got settled, he showed why he was such a well-regarded recruit.

Gibson said Turner split time between the scout team and regular defense by midseason, and coaches salivated at the thought of getting him in the rotation.

“If we’d have got him in earlier last year with the NCAA stuff, I think he’d have played a little bit,” Gibson said. “He’s a good-looking kid. There’s a lot of guys I’m anxious to see back there, but he’s one that sticks out.”

If Turner and Devin Gardner are on the field at the same time during the spring game, I'm watching Turner. That's how important he is for the program. The article mentions a possibility that Turner could end up at safety if that's the thing that seems to make the most sense, FWIW.

There is also praise for JT Floyd, but I tend to file that under the Johnny Sears rule: you talk up whoever you've got in the vague hope confidence can carry them despite your lyin' eyes.

Walkin' on. Good article in the Grand Rapids Press on walk-ons, though it misidentifies what a grayshirt is*. It highlights a physically imposing offensive tackle from Forest Hills Central who joins Baquer Sayed as Michigan preferred walk-ons who picked M over MAC offers. Meet Kristian Mateus:

It’s not the same because of the scholarship, but everybody is treated as the same player at Michigan,” said the 6-foot-8, 285-pound offensive lineman. “I feel good about that.”It’s not the same because of the scholarship, but everybody is treated as the same player at Michigan,” said the 6-foot-8, 285-pound offensive lineman. “I feel good about that.”

“Coach (Rich) Rodriguez was a walk-on himself, so he has made a commitment to make a walk-on feel as comfortable as possible,” Mateus said. “I was recruited by Michigan, took a visit there, went to camp there last summer, and it’s the place I want to be.”

Mateus had a Central Michigan offer and interest from Western Michigan and… Notre Dame? Probably not that latter but in any case sometimes you get weird breakout offensive linemen and having a MAC prospect walk-on is a non-trivial chance at a contributor.

*(Article erroneously states that a grayshirt is an early enrollee a la Devin Gardner, Ricardo Miller, and company. Those folk are usually termed early enrollees. Grayshirts are the opposite: instead of accelerating and skipping their last semester of high school, a grayshirt (usually) signs a LOI and then waits an extra semester to join the team. Sometimes they enroll, sometimes they don't. They're not on scholarship if they do.)

Note. In case anyone hadn't noticed, the restrictions implemented Saturday were lifted yesterday, so things should be back to normal. I think it worked out pretty well; there were a number of threads that got deleted but overall things here werewaylessdumb than elsewhere, thanks in large part to turning off the ability for people to sign up to vent. That system will return in the aftermath of future HEAD ASPLODE type events.

There have been complaints about censorship, to which I say nuts. Example of a pulled thread:

F--- me. F--- my life. If football can't fill the void in my life, i'm just going to have to turn to booze and sluts.

This is noise, and things on the internet get ruined when the signal to noise ratio gets too low. The MGoBlog trend is ever-increasing levels of restriction as the blog grows to keep the ratio relatively high, and that won't change.

Also BONUS. I've turned on the ability for folks to use Windows Live Writer to put up diary posts. For now it's restricted to 500+ point folk; once I know it's up and running without incident anyone will be able to use it if you like. Complicated instructions will allow you to access much more convenient picture uploads and tagging and whatnot. It's just a better editor in all ways. (protip: the main column is 560 pixels wide.)

Mac/Linux people will have to pound sand. Sorry.

Fun fun fun until daddy's head explodes, leaving chunks spread across the county. So… was yesterday's appearance on WTKA fun or what? Yes, it was fun or what. If you'd like a hear a man attempting to hang on to the last shreds of his sanity, there are podcasts:

"I don't think it's fair to coaches to bring them in and say, 'We're going to give you three years,'" she said in an interview on Friday, citing a recent example. "When [former men's basketball coach] Tommy Amaker came in, we stuck with him for six years. It just wasn't going to work; it wasn't the right fit. But it wasn't a rushed decision."

Note that the statement specifically implies not just next year but the year after for Rodriguez. Short of a major violation from the Freep jihad—which I will reiterate is not the expected outcome from anyone on the Michigan side of things—Rodriguez will get to 2011, at which point it's up to him.

Why the suck? We're living in an era of college football hyperbole thanks to the 12th game and bowl games now counting as official stats, but not retroactively. Every good multi-year starter is now breaking or threatening this record or that. There's no better example of this than Juice Williams approaching the top five in all time Big Ten passing yards. All these records mean nothing.

But there's one area of hyperbole that's not hyperbole at all: we are really living through an era of the worst calls in college football history. Before the advent of replay, bad calls were just bad calls and were relatively understandable since they were irreversible split-second decisions. Now, though, replay officials can commit the cardinal sin of screwing up an obviously correct call. Here's a touchdown from the Indiana-Iowa game:

This was ruled a touchdown on the field and overturned by the replay official. It is in the building when it comes to worst calls ever made because some guy saw indisputable evidence—watch the field turf change color as the IU receiver's foot rakes over it—of a touchdown and called it not a touchdown. (It's not very far in the building since I can think of two more egregious ones off the top of my head: Brandon Minor's pylon-aided touchdown against Michigan State last year and the onside kick Oregon was awarded despite never even recovering the ball.)

So, a question: why are confused goats allowed to run these things? Honestly. There is no other explanation for this stuff. A few years ago refs correctly called Antonio Bass down against Iowa and the replay official overturned it despite clear evidence that the reason the ball came out was Bass's elbow hitting the ground. They failed to overturn that ridiculous Domata Peko touchdown. On the Indiana call above it is so obvious that the PBP guy immediately says "oh he dragged that right foot" as the spray of fieldturf pellets goes up. Most replay calls are that obvious on a first viewing, and yet they take five minutes and there's a reasonable chance the guy in the booth can't see what's completely obvious to everyone watching the game.

I don't know what the fix is, but I think a major problem is that replay officials are often referees who have been put out to pasture. Therefore they are crazy and old. Putting crazy old people in charge leads to things like Florida State's defense. It is not a good idea.

You grow like a weed. Hope burgeons for your #15 Michigan Wolverine basketball team (who wants some FREE PPPPPIZZAAA) for a variety of reasons, mostly Manny Harris and Deshawn Sims. Big Ten Geeks has put together a great study that provides another reason for optimism:

The big, overarching conclusion is this: a player shows the most improvement between his freshman and sophomore seasons than he does any other offseason. In fact, the freshman offseason improvement is, on average, greater than the improvement between a player's sophomore season and his senior season.

Here's the o-rating chart:

That's one of four graphs that all say the same thing: older players are better and younger players get better faster.

How this applies to the Big Ten this year:

Schwing. Indiana is a runaway winner here but their goal is to go from one of the worst teams in a major conference to one of the worst teams in the Big Ten. Amongst actual contenders no team should see its players improve more than Michigan and the only team that's even somewhat close is Minnesota. The bounce Michigan gets should be significant.

I'll add in my default caution: past performance is a better predictor of future results than past results. Michigan's past performance lags behind their past results—they finished the year #50 in the Pomeroy rankings instead of the 40th-ish their tourney seeding suggested or the 32nd-ish their second-round status suggested. That's the baseline from which I'm measuring improvement, and from that perspective I've thought projecting a leap into the top 15 was optimistic. 25? Sure. 15? Probably not. The above chart is convincing enough to close some of that gap, IME.

You rang? There are three main questions going into the season. One: can Manny Harris reduce appearances of Evil Manny to a couple here and there? Two: will one of the wing players step up to be a true three-point gunner with an eFG percentage Salim Stoudemire would be proud of? And three: will we get anything from a big lumbering gumpy white guy?

BLGWG #1 is Zack Gibson, who can't shoot threes like he thinks he can and doesn't do much offensively but has erratic moments of OMGIBSON ownage. College bigs like him often take some time to get it together and find themselves blossoming into useful, even good players their senior year. Examples from recent Michigan vintage include Graham Brown and Chris Young. And late last year Gibson was a huge factor on defense, making a lot of plays that no one else on the roster can make for reasons of being 6'5" tops. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a quasi-breakout year that no one except Michigan fans notice.

“My legs are in the best shape they’ve been in in a long time,” Cronin said. “I’m sure it’s going to turn over on the court where I guarantee I’m going to be a little more explosive than I’ve ever been. And my endurance is going to be better because of the track, so I’m really excited about where I’m at.”

Cronin is what Beilein looks for in a big man. He’s intelligent. He has good passing skills, something demonstrated during Saturday’s open practice when he found cutting players from the high post.

He’s also demonstrated the ability to shoot three-pointers - something Beilein’s most well-known big man, former West Virginia center Kevin Pittsnogle, was known for.

There's no way Cronin is an effective or frequent three-point shooter and the conditioning/hip issues are probably going to limit him to 10-15 minutes a game—Beilein says Cronin "doesn't have his bounce back" in the article. But in his cameo last year before the injury redshirt he showed some skills to go with his hugeness. If he can spell Gibson effectively Michigan will be able to roll out a decently sized lineup against the big thumpers of the world, which would do wonders for Michigan's atrocious 2PT FG defense.

No. This guy attempts to defend Deadspin for the Phillips Incident, stating that the rumors weren't "unsourced" based on Daulerio's round of contrition interviews in which he repeatedly stated that they weren't just publishing random emails. I don't know if I believe that; given the way it was framed it was clear Daulerio didn't care either way, really.

And let's remember what the "news" is here: Deadspin has successfully ferreted out the very newsworthy information that one ESPN vice president is in a relationship with another ESPN vice president. Armed with this knowledge, we will defeat cancer and Marcelo Balboa. Daulerio's wandered around giving interview after interview in which he acknowledges he had a hissy fit, which he apparently thinks will earn him credit, before claiming that there was a noble purpose—exposing ESPN's inconsistent enforcement of sexual harassment rules—behind everything. The evidence marshaled for this consists of the following items:

An ESPN radio host sexually harassed someone and was suspended for it.

ESPN VP 1 is dating non-related ESPN VP 2.

Daulerio's attempts to explain his actions after the fact are feeble post-hoc justifications for a mean-spirited, purposeless expose on the private life of a non-public figure.